I stiffened as I heard a car on the gravel drive. I quickly rounded the front of the house, my hand going to the gun tucked in the back of my pants.
A navy SUV pulled up to the house and three alphas who looked to be in their sixties got out. I relaxed slightly when I recognized them from the photos I’d studied of Westin’s uncles. The absent uncles who left their niece to live alone in a mansion.
One of them caught sight of me and clenched his jaw, looking furious. I closed the distance between us.
“Hey, I’m Gray, Westin’s bodyguard.”
The alpha relaxed his stance. “Right,” he said, extending his hand to me. “We just found out yesterday about this whole situation. I’m Sean and these are my packmates, Alex and Rupert.”
“I’m glad we caught you,” Alex said, rounding the car. “Do you have a minute to come inside and talk?”
“Sure.” I followed them into the kitchen, wondering where Westin was. There was a faint sound of water from upstairs. She must be in the shower.
“How’s it going?” Rupert asked. “Can I get you anything?”
“I’m good, thanks. You know why I’m guarding Westin?”
“We got a call from the police station notifying us of the attack since we’re her guardians,” Alex answered with a frown. “They said it was likely a random attack.”
I’d been talking with the police to find out who hired Westin’s attacker, but they were useless as fuck. They kept saying, “These things happen, especially now that omegas are out in society.”
Fuckers, the lot of them.
“They haven’t been very helpful,” I grunted.
The three alphas exchanged a look I couldn’t quite decipher.
“Look, I’m sorry to say this, but I think you may have gotten roped into this job on false pretenses,” Alex said carefully.
“What do you mean?”
“Well… Westin is a charming girl, but she’s troubled. Obviously, it’s hard to lose your parents young, but she was always a… fussy child. When she got older and revealed as an omega, she started using her charms to manipulate others. My omega, Cat…” He stopped talking, swallowing hard. “Cat was a soft-hearted omega and gave in to whatever Westin wanted. We did our best to give her structure and boundaries, but Westin continued to be rebellious and dramatic.”
“You think she’s making up being attacked?” I kept my voice level as I suppressed a growl in my chest.
Alex’s eyes widened. “Oh god, no. It sounds like it was horrible. It’s just these letters…” He trailed off.
“We don’t have any proof, of course,” Rupert said. “But the letters seemed odd to us. They’re not unlike some of the things she used to do as a teenager for attention.”
My heart started beating faster. My mind wouldn’t,couldn’taccept the possibility that Westin had written the letters herself. But then again, hadn’t I thought there was something off about them? A tendril of uncertainty wove its way into my chest.
Sean watched me closely. “Has she told you she has health issues?”
“Yeah,” I said. “She was in some pain today.” I glanced towards the stairs where Westin’s room was.
“Fuck,” Alex said, grimacing. “I thought she was done with this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did she tell you that she’d been diagnosed with something?” he asked.
“No, she said it was undiagnosed.” I realized I hadn’t asked her further questions, and I should have.
“Well, at least she’s not lying about that part anymore,” Rupert muttered.
Sean sighed, running his hand over his face. “When Westin was at the Designation Academy, they did a medical exam and found that she’s infertile. They sent her back home since she wasn’t eligible to bond with a pack, but then she started complaining about various physical symptoms. Every week, it was something new. We took her to doctors, but they all said the same thing—there was nothing physically wrong with her. For omegas, one of their strongest drives is to mother children. They think the news of her infertility broke something in her mind. They’ve never found any physical cause for her health issues.”
“She didn’t say anything about that?—”
